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| Thursday, April 03, 2008 |
| Tattling and Turtles |
Tattling. It's a word that every parent has to define and draw their own lines on. When is it okay and when is not? This is an issue that we have been dealing with on a regular basis with L and El recently. L especially has had trouble with it. On several occasions since Easter candy arrived, he's run in after I've been doing something else and said (quite proudly I might add), "El got Skittles (really M & Ms) out asking." Of course, I correct his "out" to "without" and then tell him that he is tattling. I talk to El also about the situation. After 4 or 5 rounds of this, I notice one brother trying to get the other in trouble a lot and a second brother repeatedly disobeying/stealing. Of course, both had to be dealt with.
Last Saturday, I went to help H and her youth group with a fundraiser for their summer mission trip to New Orleans. I returned to a front yard littered with candy wrappers. Apparently, D had told them they could have some Easter candy and they chose to be very irresponsible with their trash. I called L out and asked who did it. The answer: "El." I next called El out and asked who did it: "L." They both got a good talking to about littering, but mostly about taking responsibility for their own actions, not others. Then they were made to pick up the trash.
Now for the progress... Last night my ankle was absolutely killing me. I had been on it a lot, it was very swollen, and I had a large raw sore around my incision on the outside. The boot is hard to walk on without another shoe on the other foot. It makes me too uneven and hurts my hip and back. Therefore, I constantly have to wear a shoe, no sock feet or bare feet. I was walking to the kitchen to get a drink of water before going to bed and heard a squish and then a stickiness. With each step, my foot was sticking to the ground. Yep, you guessed it, GUM! I took off the shoe that was balancing me out and looked at it. Red gum. Hmm... The bwins were chewing some red watermelon Extra gum earlier. I set my shoe down and resolved to find out who the culprit was in the morning.
This morning I showed the bwins my shoe and asked whose gum it was. L immediately started in, "El...(pause, brain was thinking)... I threw my gum in the trash." WOW! Sweet momentary victory. He started to blame brother and get him in trouble, but rethought everything and told me his personal status. I was very proud of him and told him so. I thought this was great progress. It's hard for adults sometimes to think this way, much less a 6 year old boy who doesn't think clearly all of the time due to his b-mom's irresponsibility. I felt we had gained a behavioral victory.
As for El, he, knowing he was stuck and better not lie, told me he threw his gum on the floor. I emphasized how wrong it was to throw gum on the floor and then gave him the natural consequence of cleaning my shoe. He did not like this task one bit and cried in frustration throughout the whole time of trying to remove the gum. Soon he realized how bad it is to throw gum down instead of in the trash.
As for turtles, here's the massive turtle the boys found in our driveway after a recent rain. They tried to keep him in the wagon, but we ended up having to get a large cardboard box to keep him in until all of the siblings came home from school to see him. He was released to freedom the next day after the compassion of Z was expressed.
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posted by 6blessings @ 6:37 AM  |
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| 3 Comments: |
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Great progress with the boys and telling the truth. Cute turtle!
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It sounds like you are teaching them well. Piney likes to blame everyone and anything but herself if she has done something wrong. So I know!
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I am sure you are proud of the boys. I am sorry about your ankle still hurting.
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Great progress with the boys and telling the truth. Cute turtle!